quite conventional, but pricked up his ears, which were strung to catch
the lightest whisper of news, at the mention of the Fairfax name.

"Not the Fairfax of the Hardy case?" he said, for the moment intent on
nothing so moving as a possible service to his paper. "Of course
you've seen----"

Garrison sat down on the copy of the _Star_ which Dorothy had left in a
chair. He deftly tucked it up beneath his coat.

"No, oh, no, certainly not," he said, and pulling out his watch, he
added to Dorothy, "I shall have to be going. Put on your hat and come
out for a two-minute walk."

Then, to the others:

"Sorry to have to run off in this uncomplimentary fashion, but I trust
we shall meet again."

Hunter felt by instinct that this was the man of all men whom he ought,
in all duty, to see. He could not insist upon his calling in such a
situation, however, and Garrison and Dorothy, bowing as they passed,
were presently out in the hall with the parlor door closed behind them.
In half a minute more they were out upon the street.

"You'll be obliged to find other apartments at once," he said. "You'd
better not even go back to pay the bill. I'll send the woman a couple
of dollars and write that you made up your mind to go along home, after
all."

"But--I wanted to ask a lot of questions--of Miss Ellis," said Dorothy,
thereby revealing the reason she had wished to come here before. "I
thought perhaps----"

"Questions about me?" interrupted Garrison, smiling upon her in the
light of a street-lamp they were passing. "I can tell you far more
about the subject than she could even guess--if we ever get the time."

Dorothy blushed as she tried to meet his gaze.

"Well--it wasn't that--exactly," she said. "I only thought--thought it
might be interesting to know her."

"It's far more interesting to know where you will go," he answered.
"Let me look at this paper for a minute."

He pulled forth the _Star_, turned to the classified ads, found the
"Furnished Rooms," and cut out half a column with his knife.

"Let me go back where I was to-night," she suggested. "I am really too
tired to hunt a place before to-morrow. I can slip upstairs and retire
at once, and the first thing in the morning I can go to a place where
Alice used to stay, with a very deaf woman who never remembers my name
and always calls me Miss Root."

"Where is the place?" said Garrison, halting as Dorothy halted.

"In West Eighteenth Street." She